Nadya Rusheva is the youngest artist of the USSR. Biography of Centaurs Nadi Rusheva

Rusheva Nadezhda Nikolaevna

RUSHEVA NADEZHDA NIKOLAEVNA

B iographic sketch

Nadia Rusheva
was born in the family of an artist and a ballerina, in a city with a strange, booming name:
Ulaanbaatar. Then the family moved to Moscow. The girl began to draw from the age of three,
much earlier than reading.

The drawing became for
her as if with another language - mysterious, impetuous, light. Like breathing. She and
she herself was light, mobile, cheerful, loved dancing, laughter, jokes, harmless
mischief.

But above the picture
always - calmed down, froze. Above the drawing, she seemed to plunge into another world,
unknown to others. She dominated the drawing. She lived in it. She herself said not
times: "I live the life of those whom I draw."

Than she
did you draw? Colored crayons, pencil. While her father read aloud to her "The Tale of the Tsar
Saltana", she made more than thirty-six drawings for her in the album ... By the way, in
she never studied art school, and no one could ever force
draw her forcibly.

At the age of six or seven, the girl made friends with a pen (pen),
which in the first class everyone diligently brought out sticks and hooks. Painters
usually they don’t draw with it - it’s too fragile a tool, and corrections are excluded ..
Nadia loved to draw with a felt-tip pen and pencils, for her it was equal
degrees easily, she said that she only traces on sheets of paper suddenly
tread the contours of the face and figure, contours and plots. After her departure -
I don’t dare to say - death, death - it all happened so suddenly! -
more than a thousand drawings remain, among them illustrations for the "most dear poet"
Pushkin

Graphic artist

"NADIA,
PUSHKIN, SIRENKI, etc."

Nadya Rusheva, in my opinion, is a phenomenon
extraordinary in the fine arts of our days.

Talk
it is joyful and bitter about her: joyful because, looking at Nadia's drawings, talking about
them, it is impossible not to feel on the high wave of a big holiday, not
feel good excitement; but it’s bitter because Nadia herself is no longer with
us.

Nadia died at the age of seventeen. Having lived so little in this world, she
left a huge artistic legacy - ten thousand
fantasy drawings.

Talent
generous, and this generosity of the soul, this desire to spend their spiritual wealth without
looking back, to give people all of yourself without a trace - undoubtedly one of the first
signs, the original property of true talent.

But of course
It goes without saying that we judge the power of talent not only by the amount of work done.
It is important not only how many drawings we have in front of us, but also what
drawings.

I was four times at the exhibitions of a student of an ordinary Moscow school
Nadia Rusheva, and with each new acquaintance with her drawings, they are more
captivated, conquered and delighted.

Nadina
drawings are a huge, diverse, rich world of images, feelings, ideas,
interests. In her drawings and today, and the historical past of the country, and
the myths of the Hellenes, and modern Poland, and fairy tales, and the pioneers of Artek, and the ancient world,
and the terrible Auschwitz, and the first days of the October Revolution.

mothers
peace - for peace

Cry
over Zoya

The diversity of the artist's interests is amazing. She cares about everything
the world was the case. Everything concerned her.

But this breadth of artistic interests -
is not omnivorous. The selection apparatus, so important for the artist, operated
Nadis are strict and unmistakable. What did Nadia choose for herself from practically
boundless wealth of human culture?

Nadia loved clean, high
poetic myths of the Hellenes. Many of her drawings are devoted to mythological motifs, and
among them are the earliest. An eight-year-old girl Nadia draws "The Labors of Hercules" -
a cycle of one hundred small studies.

Already in the early children's drawings is clearly seen
future artist, with his passions, with his common eye and beautiful
flexible line, with its unmistakable sense of selection and graceful laconicism
artistic language.

This is about the first drawings of eight-year-old Nadia. And here
before me is the last composition of a seventeen-year-old artist. And again the theme
beautiful Hellenic tale: "Apollo and Daphne." This small one, about
page of a school notebook, the drawing is truly a masterpiece. The myth of the god of the sun, muses,
the arts of Apollo, who fell in love with the beautiful nymph Daphne and was rejected by her, is one
one of the most poetic creatures of Greek mythology.

This
the victory of a nymph over a god, Daphne over Apollo, and Nadya drew in her very
tragic climax. Apollo, having already overtaken Daphne, stretches out his hands to
grab your prey, but Daphne is no longer half Daphne. From her living body already
laurel branches appear. With astonishing artistic resourcefulness, Nadya caught and
selected the most complex, most dramatic moment of the myth. She portrays
as if the very process of reincarnation of Daphne. She is still human, but at the same time already
almost a tree: she has both living human hands and laurel branches. Executed drawing
amazingly sparingly, precisely, transparently. The line is elastic, fluid, completed in the first and
with a single movement of the pen.

Nadia's line is always singular and final.
Nadia did not use a pencil, did not use an eraser, did not shade
drawing, did not outline preliminary directions, did not conduct multiple
linear options. The line is one, always final, and the material that
Nadya worked, strictly corresponded to her amazing ability of unmistakable
improvisation. Ink, pen, felt-tip pen do not tolerate corrections and retries, but
it was ink, pen and felt-tip pen that Nadia loved, occasionally tinted her drawings
pastel or watercolor.

Freckles.
Seryozha Yesenin.

Dance
Scheherazade

The infallibility of the line in Nadia's drawings is simply
amazing. This is some special, supreme gift, some kind of magical, miraculous
the strength and property of the artist's hand, always correctly choosing that one
direction, that single bend, that single thickness and smoothness of the line,
which are necessary in each particular case. Confidence, fidelity of the hand of Nadia
incomprehensible.

Ophelia

So
resourceful, economical and every time undeniably final Nadina's composition
works. Here is a small drawing of "Caligula's Feast". On a warm greenish background
we have three figures - a full-bodied Caligula and a flowering woman next to him, and in front of
them on the stones - a black slave with a tray laden with banquet dishes and
wine vessels. How little is drawn and how much is said: these three figures and their
position in a large banquet hall, only a hint given in the background,
enough to create an atmosphere of feasting.

Peculiar
composition "Adam and Eve". There are only two figures in the picture - Adam and Eve. nor heavenly
tabernacles, nor the apple tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Associated accessories -
only a kite in the foreground and an apple. The apple has already been plucked: it is on the ground in front of
to the eyes of Eve, who, crouching down, greedily stretched out her hand to seize him. This
stormy gesture of a woman, eager to seize, to know the forbidden, inimitably
expressive. Shielded by Eve, Adam, also crouched to the ground, seems to duplicate
Eve's swift movement. Center of the painting: Eve, apple, Eve's gesture. I named this
the composition is a picture, not a drawing, and this, in my opinion, is quite natural.
This drawing is more than a drawing.

Unbowed

smallness
The means by which Nadia achieves a huge result is sometimes simply amazing.
Here is a drawing entitled "Auschwitz". It has neither camp barracks nor
barbed wire, no crematorium ovens. Only a face - one face, haggard
exhausted, suffering, with sunken cheeks and huge, terrifying
looking at the world with eyes ... There are no details that would speak of terrible
deeds that the Nazis did in the death camp, but all this is clearly seen in
exhausted, emaciated face with huge eyes in Nadia's drawing
"Auschwitz".

But the author of "Auschwitz", "Adam and Eve", "Apollo and Daphne"
and thousands of other works by the artist, complex and deeply expressed complex and deep
ideas and images of our century and past centuries, there were only seventeen
years.

Such an early maturation of the mind, feelings, hands, talents is impossible
define, measure out by ordinary measures, by ordinary categories, and I understand
academician of painting V. Vatagin, speaking about the genius of Nadia.

Nadia
with animal artist V. Vatagin

I understand Irakli Andronnikov,
who, after visiting the exhibition of Nadia Rusheva, wrote: “The fact that this was created
the girl is brilliant, it becomes clear from the first drawing. They don't require
proof of its originality."

The words "genius" and
"pristine" - very big words, it's scary to pronounce them in the application
to a contemporary, and, moreover, to a seventeen-year-old. But I think it's the one
a measure that can and should be measured by Nadia's enormous talent
Rusheva.

So far I have spoken more or less at length about the four
Nadine drawings: "Apollo and Daphne", "Feast of Caligula", "Adam and Eve", "Auschwitz",
but, in fact, each of her drawings deserves the same and even more
detailed conversation. Thematic diversity and richness of Nadin
creativity is almost limitless To what only themes, motives, life phenomena
this hot and greedily yearning soul does not convert!

self-portrait
drawing on the floor

Nadia insatiably swallows books, and almost all of them
gives rise to a whirlwind of thoughts and a thirst to embody on paper visibly, in lines and colors
the material of the read book, its characters, its ideas and images.

She draws
illustrations for K. Chukovsky and W. Shakespeare, L. Kassil and F. Rabelais, A. Gaidar and
E. Hoffmann, S. Marshak and D. Batsron, A. Green and C. Dickens, N. Nosov and A. Dumas,
P. Ershov and M. Twain, P. Bazhov and D. Rodari, A. Blok and F. Cooper, I. Turgenev and
J. Vern, B. Polevoy and M. Reid, L. Tolstoy and V. Hugo, M. Bulgakov and E. Voynich,
M. Lermontov and A. Saint-Exupery.

Little
prince with rose

Parting
with Fox

Pushkin
- this is Nadia's special world, her special predilection, special love. From Pushkin
maybe it all started. Pushkin woke up dozing in a small eight-year-old
Nadya Rusheva insinct of creativity. It was then, in the fifty-ninth year,
having visited Leningrad for the first time with his parents, visiting the Hermitage, the Russian Museum,
the last apartment of the poet on Moika 12, Nadya picked up a pen and a felt-tip pen. Then
it was precisely the first thirty-six drawings on themes inspired by the “Tale of
Tsar Saltan.

From this apartment on the Moika, which has become dear to Nadia's heart,
creative work began in Nadia; here it ended. Her last trip was made
here ten years later.

The day after visiting the poet's apartment
Nadia died suddenly. Three days before, she had visited the city of Pushkin under
Leningrad, in the lyceum, in the room in which the lyceum student lived for six years
Pushkin.

Young
lyceum students Pushkin and Delvig

Drawings by Nadia Rusheva bring us closer to
Pushkin one more step. Working on these drawings, Nadia tried to get used to not
only in the image of the poet himself, but also in the atmosphere that surrounded him, in Pushkin's
era, see, feel, feel it - imagine with your own eyes the people of that
time, their environment, the things that were around them and in their hands. Customizing
herself for this, Nadia made drawings of the Pushkin cycle with a goose pen. She constantly
she fiddled with goose feathers these days, mended them, burned candles in the flame,
made countless cuts of the feather at different locations from the groove, so that
to achieve a certain, necessary for the drawing, flexibility of the tip of the pen.

Dad,
let's play!

In the Pushkin cycle of Nadia, one can clearly feel the consonance with
in the manner of Pushkin's drawing - light, laid-back, elegant, as if
volatile But at the same time, Nadia remains Nadia in these drawings. On the face
its everlasting laconic layout, confident certainty of lines,
improvisational freedom of drawing.

Nadia first creates a series of lyceum
drawings: several portraits of Pushkin the lyceum student, his comrades at the Lyceum. Under
Nadya's pen creates Kükhlya, Delvig, Pushchin, genre scenes of lyceum life,
Lyceum friends who visit the sick Sasha, lyceum students against
educator-slander Pilecki.

Küchelbecker

But
little by little, artistic thirst and the desire to understand the world of the great
poet in all its breadth and diversity. And then after the lyceum series
there are drawings "Pushkin and Kern", "Pushkin and Riznich", "Pushkin and Mickiewicz",
"Pushkin and Bakunina", Pushkin's farewell to his children before his death, portrait of Natalya
Nikolaevna, Natalya Nikolaevna with children at home and for a walk.

Pursuit
expand the field of vision, relentlessly deepen the chosen topic, with which we
met in the Pushkin cycle, generally characteristic of Nadia.

Master
and Margarita in the developer's basement

In its last cycle
dedicated to the novel by M. Bulgakov "The Master and Margarita", Nadya speaks
theme pioneer. M. Bulgakov's novel is extremely complex: it combines
in one whole reality and fantasy, history and satire.

Master
waiting for margarita

Nadia brilliantly overcame this difficulty of uniting
heterogeneous plans. And then, getting used to the image, she endlessly repeats the face
Margarita, for which he is looking for the most striking embodiment.

Excellent
found the means of incarnation and such diverse characters as the Master, Yeshua,
Pilate, Ratslayer, Volnads and his retinue.

plea
Frida

Koroviev
and hippo

The same relentless search for truth and expressiveness of the image
we see in the magnificent cycle dedicated to "War and Peace". striving
to present Natasha Rostova to us in all her fullness of life, Nadia draws her
a teenager with a doll and a girl inspired by a dream, bathed in moonlight in front of
open window in Otradnoye, and a loving, caring mother by the bed
child.

Other
the characters of "War and Peace" are also revealed to us in Nadia's drawings in everything
variety of vital interests, characters, destinies, aspirations, actions and
mental movements. Extremely rich, versatile look at the material by the artist
great novel: Pierre on the field of the Battle of Borodino, saving a woman with a child,
Kutuzov, talking in Fili with a six-year-old peasant girl Malasha, death
Platon Karataev, the death of Petya Rostov, Nikolushka Bolkonsky, dreaming of
exploits...

Pierre
Bezukhov

Napoleon
in retreat

And one more, extraordinary comparison. Eager to get in
into the image, to give it in all its fullness, Nadia tries as much as possible
approach him physically. Drawing Pushkin's cycle, Nadya wanders around
Pushkin places, visits the Lyceum, goes to the place of Pushkin's duel. Measures by
ten steps into the snow, and, seeing firsthand how terrible the distance of the duelists,
exclaims with pain and indignation: “This is murder! After all, this villain shot
almost point blank." Then I go to the Moka of the Black River and stand there for a long time in front of
portrait of the poet, among the things that surrounded him during his lifetime, as if absorbing
the very atmosphere of this life, his thoughts, dreams of deeds, his muse, the sound of his
poems. During a walk in the Lyceum Garden, Nadia picks up a twig from the path and
suddenly begins to draw with it on the snow the flying profile of young Pushkin ...

That
the same happens in the process of working on other cycles, especially expensive
artist. Drawing sheets of "War and Peace", Nadia travels with her father from Moscow to the autumn
Borodino field wanders for a long time through a huge valley, stopping and carefully
looking through the places where there were Bagration's flushes, Raevsky's battery, Shevardinsky
redoubt, Kutuzov's headquarters ...
Working on drawings for The Master and Margarita, Nadya
bypasses all the old Moscow lanes, streets, boulevards where
the action of the novel, where they walked, suffered, argued, scandalized, cunning characters
Bulgakov's fantasy.

And now back to the promised emergency
comparison. What does it consist of? Nadia's father said that she couldn't draw
naturalistically, with chiaroscuro, never copied nature. Even while doing your
self-portraits, she only briefly looked into the mirror, and then painted already
by memory. Her drawings were always improvised.
So how do you combine this
improvisational style with the desire to get acquainted in detail with the life of the characters
their drawings, with the places where they lived and acted, look closely at these
places, surrounding objects, study them?

This is usually how someone works
strongly committed to realism. But the artist-improviser seems to have to
do it the wrong way?
Nadia's drawings are improvisations. They are to some extent
fantastic, fabulous, but at the same time they are inspired by a specific
reality, life, book, fact. And Nadia is faithful to specific images,
things, events. Nadia's drawings, despite their improvisation and sometimes
fantastic, not groundless, not impersonal, not indifferent to life. They follow
life as much as they follow the creative impulse of Nadia. They are
fantastic and realistic at the same time. They are a fairy tale come true, poetry in
chart.

Nadia draws mythical sirens. A lot of them. She loves them. But how does she
loves them? And what are they like with Nadia?

First of all, these are not those ferocious sirens
sea ​​divas, who in myths lure sailors-travelers to
the depths of the sea to destroy them. You can only save yourself from them by covering your ears.
wax, so as not to hear their singing, as Odysseus did with his companions.
Nadi sirens are affectionately called sirens, and they do not destroy anyone. On the contrary, they
very charming, friendly, affable and, without posing as a villain, are engaged in
the most ordinary things: go to see models in a fashion house, serve
waiters, arrange at home, from time to time, a big wash and, taking off their
fish tails and after washing them, they hang them in a row, like panties, on strings for
drying.

These lilacs are surprisingly cute, and Nadia has been friends with them for a long time. At
she even has such a drawing: “Friendship with a lilac”, where an ordinary girl,
maybe Nadia herself, smiling, stands in an embrace with a siren and peacefully
talking to her.

centaur baby
with laurel wreath

Very homely, sweet and centaurs, as well as centaurs
and centaurs. Centaurs are as flirtatious as lilacs. For all four
on their hooves they have high, pointed, most possible heels. Relations between Nadia and
centaurs, Nadia and sirenok, in my opinion, are what a relationship should be
artist to his creations: they are completely natural, humane, sincere.
Through these relationships, the artist himself, his
a good look at the world around him.

Meeting
bacchus and nymphs

And one more thing is hidden in Nadia's images: this is a kind
the smile and cheerful eye of the artist, her soft humor - soft and at the same time bold
and thin.

Minx
and Spitz

In this cheerful, perky, mischievous attitude to the material there is
something openly childish - and at the same time courageously adult, fearless.
The artist does not bow down, does not grovel before a myth, before a fairy tale, but simply
accepts this world as artistic certainty and is completely free and
at ease in relations with him.

What to say?

Say what you want.

-
OK. I'll tell you how I got an A in math.

And she told.
The story is sweet, simple-hearted, open - everything is straight forward, everything is without concealment, without
embellishment It contains all of Nadia, her entire character, her entire spiritual structure.

I
watched three short films about Nadia. In them, Nadia is also the same: without
retouching and embellishment. Wandering around Leningrad ... Here she is at the Winter Canal, on the embankment
Neva, in the Summer Garden, a nice, sweet girl, sometimes even a girl. Look at
wonderful city, which she loved so much, in which she was in her short life
four times.

In the last film about Nadia - very short and ending with her
with a farewell smile and a woeful caption “The film could not be completed, because Nadya
Rusheva died in March of the sixty-ninth year ... ”- one gesture is captured
Nadia.

Slowly walking through the rooms of Pushkin's apartment and peering into
the relics surrounding her, Nadia with a volatile, somehow surprisingly intimate gesture
raises his hand to his face, to his cheek. This inadvertent gesture is captivating, she lets you know
to the viewer, with what inner excitement, with what quivering, hidden spiritual
with anxiety and joy, Nadya peered into Pushkin, into his life, into his
poems.

I asked Nadia's father: did she know about her aneurysm, about
that her illness is fatal? Nikolai Konstantinovich answered briefly: “No. None
I didn’t know… In the morning, at home, getting ready for school, I lost consciousness…”

Not
I can say - is it for the best that Nadia did not suspect about every minute
awaiting her death. Maybe, if she knew, it would deprive her of drawings
of that beautiful and truly great harmony that lives in them, would impose
on them the stamp of the tragic. I don’t know, I don’t know ... But I know one thing - looking through
many times Nadina's drawings, I was once again and finally convinced that good
wizards exist in the world, live among us ...

Nadya Rusheva died on March 6, 1969 in a hospital
due to rupture of a congenital aneurysm of a cerebral vessel and subsequent
cerebral hemorrhage, and was buried at the Intercession Cemetery in Moscow.

In memory of Nadia Rusheva Non-childish handwriting of a children's drawing

She left after
a huge artistic heritage - about 12,000 drawings. Their exact number
impossible to calculate - a significant proportion was sold in letters, hundreds of sheets
the artist presented to friends and acquaintances, a considerable number of works on various
reasons did not return from the first exhibitions. Many of her drawings are kept in the Lion Museum.
Tolstoy in Moscow, in the museum-branch named after Nadia Rusheva in the city of Kyzyl, in
Pushkin House of the Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg, the National Fund of Culture and the Museum
Pushkin in Moscow.

More than 160 exhibitions of her works have been held in Japan, Germany,
USA, India, Mongolia, Poland and many other countries.

http://chtoby-pomnili.com/page.php?id=830

I remember I was visiting Polina, sitting in her room on the carpet, opposite the bookcase and leafing through books. One of them turned out to be a thin art album. "Graphics by Nadia Rusheva" - that's what it was called. From one page, the beautiful, unearthly eyes of a blond-haired boy looked at me. For some reason, I immediately recognized him as the Little Prince. From the next drawing, the mournful face of the Fox (he was depicted in the form of a man) looked, thin hands that did not want to let go, hugging the Little Prince for the last time, who will now leave forever ...

And for some reason I cried. For the first time in my entire 18-year-old life, I cried at the sight of drawings - ordinary graphic drawings.

On some, smooth lines intertwined intricately, blooming like flowers; on others, they were jerky, torn, nervous. And only one thing united them - they were extremely simple. The artist's hand did not draw, did not diligently and for a long time verify them, did not erase them with an eraser, did not redraw them. And the lines came out surprisingly finished, clear ...

... The ballerina in the picture is so tired that a tremor was physically felt from the tension in her lowered hands. Little Natasha Rostova, who has just burst into the room - onto the sheet of the album, laughs contagiously loudly. In a beauty with languidly lowered eyes, you can immediately recognize Natalya Goncharova. Even if you have not read The Master and Margarita, it becomes clear from the illustrations that the thin, long-nosed type on the bench is cunning, dodgy, and vile. And nearby is a beautiful young woman, a respectable Muscovite, tensely clutching her purse in her hands. Azazello and Margarita in the Alexander Garden.

Spiky eyes, a black man in a raincoat is merciless and scary. Woland.

Thin, transparent, with a quiet sadness spilled over her face - a girl in a river under water. Ophelia.

The thoughtful boy bites his pen for writing. Sasha Pushkin!

Tatyana Larina with a letter from Onegin, an offended baby centaur, freckled Seryozha Yesenin with a blade of grass ...

I know everyone, I know everyone. Only one thing is not clear to me, only one riddle torments me - how did you manage to convey all this in a few curved lines? How could the hand of an ordinary Moscow schoolgirl bring it out? How can you say SO much in a few quick strokes of a pencil or pen?

I put the book down with difficulty, washed my face, and, sniffing, explained to my friend that I had not seen anything more penetrating and beautiful than Rusheva's drawings.

- I like it too. My dad has been to her shows. Talented girl. Only she died very early - at 17 years old.

- How did she die? At 17?

… In Mongolian, the name Nadezhda - Naidan - means "eternally living."

The long-awaited child - the girl Nadia was born on January 31, 1952 in Mongolia, in Ulaanbaatar. Her father, Nikolai Konstantinovich, worked as an artist - theater instructor and teacher at an art school, and her mother, Natalya Doydalovna (a famous ballerina of Tuva), was a choreographer.

Nadia started drawing at the age of five. At the age of seven, she sketched 36 amusing illustrations for Pushkin's The Tale of Tsar Saltan in an album. This she did at one time, while her father slowly and with expression read her favorite fairy tale.

Then Nadia and her parents moved to Moscow. She sang in the choir, participated in group dances, loved poetry and fairy tales. Mom showed her simple ballet exercises, grandfather taught her a little to play the piano. But no one taught her to draw, the girl began to do it herself, without the help of adults.

She drew easily, playfully, as if tracing only one of her visible images.

... “Some kind of plum turns out ... Or not? It's probably a steamboat. Ahh, that's the point. But Emelka put down two pillows and left ... ”It was a joyful game of drawing, a scope for the imagination of a little girl. Coming home from school and doing her homework, she gladly took up her favorite fantasizing, since she always had small albums or scraps of paper of different sizes and colors at hand. At first, she devoted no more than half an hour a day to this fun. And then it became Nadia's daily need for life.

Having lived for less than 17 years, Nadia left behind a huge wealth - over 10,000 drawings. The final number of them will never be counted - a significant proportion was sold in letters, the artist gave away hundreds of sheets to friends and acquaintances, a considerable number of works for various reasons did not return from the first exhibitions. Performing her compositions mainly with ink and ink, Nadya mastered the technique of linear graphics almost to perfection. Nadya has created illustrations for the works of 50 authors, including Shakespeare, Rabelais, Byron, Dickens, Hugo, Mark Twain, Gogol, Lermontov, Bulgakov, Lermontov and Pushkin, whom she loves so much.

Drawing "by imagination", she created, in addition, a lot of fairy tales of her own composition, storyboards of ballets that had not been staged by anyone in those years, and fantasy scenes. Among Nadya's sketches there are several of them, which depict the ballet "Anna Karenina". After the death of the artist, this ballet performance was actually staged, and Maya Plisetskaya played the main role in it.

At the age of fourteen, Nadia began work on a series of drawings for Leo Tolstoy's novel War and Peace. In these compositions, the artist has already applied a different drawing technique, using watercolor. Nadia has never used an eraser. Her drawings were born without sketches, at once, whitewashed. “I see them in advance ... They appear on paper like watermarks, and I just have to circle them with something,” Nadia admitted. She read a lot and all her impressions from what she read spilled out onto paper.

“Pushkiniana” by Nadia is not only illustrations for creativity, but also the whole life of the poet, his friends, relatives. The "similarity" of Nadia's improvisations to the drawings of Pushkin himself led the oldest Pushkinist A.I. Gessen to the idea of ​​offering the artist to illustrate his book "The Life of a Poet". Thus, a huge number of works devoted to Pushkin appeared.

The number of personal exhibitions of Nadia over time exceeded 160. The drawings of the Moscow schoolgirl fell in love in Artek, Leningrad, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, India, Japan, Mongolia. Many of them were inspired by Pushkin's poetry. In this regard, in 1969, Lenfilm began filming the documentary film "You, as the first love ...", dedicated to the Pushkin theme in Nadia's work.

Since 1996, the State Museum named after A.I. Pushkin.

At the end of school, she was going to enter VGIK: she dreamed of becoming an animator. Nadia's life was cut short on takeoff - on March 6, 1969, she, as usual, got ready for school, bent down to fasten her boots and fell, losing consciousness ... They called an ambulance, Nadia was taken to the First City Hospital.

They couldn’t save her ... Doctors called it a miracle that the girl lived to be 17 years old with severe congenital pathologies - an aneurysm of cerebral vessels. Children with such a defect (and it was then impossible to identify it during their lifetime) usually live up to 7 years.

... I read a short biography of Nadina, once again reviewed the drawings in the album and asked Polina for a couple of days - to photocopy it. Since then, I have carefully kept the photocopied sheets with Nadia's drawings. And I dreamed that someday I would know more about her. The almighty Yandex helped - exactly 6 years later I ended up at school No. 470 on the Kantemirovskaya metro station, which now bears her name. At the school where the brilliant girl studied, a memorial museum of Nadia Rusheva was created.

We are talking with the head of the museum, Natalya Vladimirovna Usenko.

– Please tell us how long the museum has existed, who was the initiator of its creation, how it all began?

The museum has existed since 1971. Nadia's father, Nikolai Konstantinovich, came to the school with this idea and donated several original drawings to the museum. Together with Nina Georgievna (now she is the director of the school) - the two of them started. The first museum was generally in the bedroom for the extended day group. There were cribs, kids slept on them, and Nadina's drawings hung around. And there was even a poet who came to this museum, and after that he wrote a poem - how children sleep and dream, inspired by Nadya's drawings. And after a while the museum received a separate room. Nikolai Konstantinovich himself conducted the first excursions, the first museum asset created from the kids, he taught himself. Then there was much more information, all this was first-hand, because Nikolai Konstantinovich, as they say, could talk about each drawing for a very, very long time, all the details of how it was created, about what, and so on.

- And how did you discover Nadia's work?

- Nadya Rusheva, I also discovered for myself by accident. I came to the Bulgakov Museum "Bad Apartment" about ten years ago. Nadia's album was on sale in the museum. He shook me. I was still in college at the time, I didn't even know about this school. And then I accidentally got into this school. It was necessary to prepare some kind of holiday on Nadia's birthday, they asked me to help, I wrote the script, and from that day everything somehow went. We made a performance about Nadia, it's called - "A little about happiness" - about Nadia's Artek days. And I decided to stay here.

- Maybe you remember some feelings from the first time you saw her drawings? What hit them?

I'm not an art historian, not an artist, I can rate it at the level of "like - dislike". And Nadia, not only with drawings, probably amazes. Personally, first of all, it’s not her drawings, not her talent, not her famous line that strikes me first of all, but she strikes me most of all as a person, and I really like how she conveys the moment, the feeling ... My favorite drawings of Nadina are the “Modernity” series. She grasps some character traits, moods, and literally conveys them in several lines. There is, for example, the drawing "On the playground." There's just a playground, moms sit on it, and kids in the sandbox. And you can see which mother is which child, because the facial expressions and behavior are described there. One mother sits and swears, and her saliva splashes, droplets are drawn. And her child is the same - a fighter, swinging a shovel at another. That is, she conveys the mood with these little things. And the famous “Fashionistas on Kalininsky Prospekt” is written so subtly, with irony. We have a drawing in the museum, it is on the back of Rusheva Nadezhda's arithmetic notebook, that is, apparently, during the lesson, also with a few strokes. There are three figures, I would not even say that they are people, very schematically. And the sun. And again, it is clear that these three figures have completely different characters. You can look at this picture and come up with a whole story. And if several people write this story, there will be different stories.

Her drawings make you fantasize, think. For me, that's the beauty of it. I can take the children around the museum, how long they can stand, because we can stop and talk about each drawing. I won’t tell them about technology, they are not particularly interested in it, but you can argue what is good, what is bad, what character that hero has, what this one has. When you look at the paintings of famous artists - yes, beauty, it's interesting - the shadows are superimposed, such paint, another paint, but that's not the point. And here it is the thoughts that are very convex.

Such interesting facts are also known - Nadia once portrayed Bulgakov's Master with a ring on his finger. In the novel about the ring - not a word. And Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov, as it turned out, always wore it at home when he wrote The Master and Margarita. Nadia dreamed of meeting Elena Segeevna Bulgakova - the meeting had already been scheduled, but Nadia did not have time ... And Elena Sergeevna said that Nadina "Margarita Transfigured" was very similar to her, to Elena Sergeevna, although Nadia had never seen her ...

And what is Nadia's talent for you?

Nadia was a very integral person, her actions, actions, thoughts, drawings - they are all so united. She was quite free-thinking, oddly enough, at that time, not blinkered. In fact, she understood much more than anything, judging by her drawings. For example, Nadia has a series that remains incomprehensible to me so far - “Mother and Child”. A child at 14, 15, 16, 17 years old - she drew these drawings. In theory, the girls still do not think about it. Why does she have this series? Basically, these are happy mothers, apparently, as it was in her family. But somewhere there is a tragedy when wartime is drawn. This topic - "Mothers" is not typical for children, they do not appreciate what their mothers do for them. Only in some adult state, maybe they will truly appreciate it. And Nadia knew exactly that. She has a drawing "Bombs are flying again." And there mothers try to protect their children from bombs with their hands. It was this feeling of the mother, the destiny of the mother that she felt and conveyed. There is a drawing “Giraffe and a little giraffe”, where a mother giraffe bends her neck to this little giraffe to caress him, and it is clear that she is uncomfortable, it is easy to see, but, nevertheless, she does it.

There is a picture of Hamlet's Mother. Quite simple, you can count the lines there. But this mother has such empty eyes! It is evident that this man has nothing left in his soul at all. It is necessary to feel it all at this age! And she has so many. Elena Sergeevna Bulgakova, for example, noted that there is a drawing from the Master and Margarita series, when Margarita bends over a sleeping boy. In my opinion, this is also not very clearly described in the novel, but again, Elena Sergeevna was struck by the way Nadia managed to convey this maternal feeling, maternal affection. She has drawings dedicated to biblical motifs - "The Martyr and Angels", the Mother of God.

- Surprisingly - during the heyday of socialism - and suddenly - the Mother of God ...

— Yes, I asked specifically - no, communism was not promoted in Nadia's family, but religious traditions were not observed either. She apparently read about it herself, thought about it herself. And Nikolai Konstantinovich - he is also an artist - does not have such motives for drawings, at least from what I saw. Although they visited the monasteries a lot, Father Nadia loved the monastic architecture. Nadia has only one oil painting - she and her dad painted in Kolomenskoye, standing side by side. Two identical drawings - one is dad's, the other is Nadine. At one time they hung with us, when there was an exhibition of Nikolai Konstantinovich, and all visitors guessed which father, which Nadine. They are not signed, only Natalya Doydalovna distinguishes them by the strength of the stroke.

– In your opinion, what attracts modern children most of all in Nadia, in her drawings?

You know, the kids are starting to co-create with her. I am a teacher of Russian and literature, and after tours of the museum, we talk and think with them for a long time. The guys begin to write poetry ... Because, in principle, Nadia herself read a lot. Nadia's father, in his book "The Last Year of Hope", cites excerpts from her diary - Nadia kept a diary where she wrote down what she had read, seen in a month - she had been to the cinema, theaters, and exhibitions a lot. Natalya Doydalovna recalls that in Leningrad she could not take her little daughter away from the Hermitage. Nadina's mother also likes to remember that when her daughter was little, she could leave her at home alone. She put a stack of books in front of her and left. “Wherever you plant your daughter, you will find it there, in books.”

As an adult, I can’t do a third of what Nadia managed to do, because she read an incredible number of books. She did a lot. At the same time, she was a very lively child, not at all "nerdy", as children say, not closed, not blinkered. She loved to dance, walk with the girls, play. Somehow she managed to do it all. It seems as if Nadia knew that she did not have long to live and strove to have more time ... Although this seal of fate, let's say, was not - as seen from her letters and drawings ... Take, for example, the same Nika Turbina, apparently - that a girl with a difficult worldview, with a tragic one. Nadia didn't. Nika is dark, with anguish, and Nadia is very light. She did not feel her exclusivity, she always kept herself very simply. And I think that's what amazes the kids. They are not able, as adults, to perceive the line, they just like the way Nadia portrays the same centaurs. They love Nadine's drawing of a guinea pig - the favorite drawing of the whole school.

Older children like Bulgakov's mysticism, they are most interested in it. The boys run to me all the time, I open the museum during the tour, and at recess, and now they all drop in, they are interested. One 12-year-old boy recently wrote such a message to Nadya: “Nadya, I love your drawings very much, I love you very much, I kiss you.”

– I know that several students help you in the museum…

- My main activists, unfortunately, have already left, they finished the 11th grade last year. Now one is finishing 11th grade, this year. She has been playing Nadia in the play for many years now.

Now children, basically, do everything for themselves, and it is very difficult to somehow involve them in something that is unprofitable for them. And here those who live not only for themselves just settle down. Nadia has a famous phrase, from a letter to her Artek friend Alik Safaraliev: “if you want them to sweat a little, burn to the ground yourself, it’s terribly difficult, but necessary, not only for yourself.” This phrase becomes a motto for some children.

– Did Natalya Doydalovna talk about her favorite drawing of her daughter?

— For some reason she loves "Sinking Ophelia". This drawing is now in the Roerich Museum. He loves "Tuva Mother" and "The Little Prince". She has a dream to make a wall calendar with the Little Prince, with this series of drawings.

- Now it is known that Nadia had a congenital pathology of the cerebral vessels, which caused her death. But I had to hear such an opinion - since the girl was a genius, everyone encouraged the development of her talent in her all the time. She was constantly told that she had to work, she needed to improve, to develop her talent, and, in the end, Nadia could not stand it.

– It is absolutely not true. I will again draw a parallel with Nika Turbina. She has a fracture, this is a broken child. Nadia absolutely does not make such an impression. She has no compulsion in her drawings. For her, drawing was a form of life, she always painted. She didn't even leave the house without a notebook. Nadia stood on the bus and drew if something came to her mind. If you take its originals, it’s there on dad’s drawing, on the back, and on a notebook, and on a blotting paper, and on a cheat sheet, and almost on the wallpaper. Agree, if she was forced to be creative, then, probably, this would have been done at least on A4, an ordinary white sheet, or somewhere so that it could be exhibited, shown. And here the drawings are precisely collected, somewhere crumpled. She painted, threw away, and dad walked, picked up. He did not force her to be creative, he supported her talent. Nobody taught her to draw, because Vatagin Vasily Alekseevich, a famous sculptor and family friend, once said: “Nadya does not need to be taught. It will only spoil her talent, its originality. She is on her own. In general, it’s even better for her not to acquire this academic character, ”that is, not to go to an art university in the future, because then the originality of her talent may be lost.

I also read on the Internet that some people believe that Nadya was simply, roughly speaking, well “promoted” ... One lady wrote this: “I also drew well, no worse than Nadya, but my dad said he wouldn’t let me spoil child's childhood. And he did not arrange my exhibitions. And then they decided to make glory for themselves on the child. It's absolutely not true! Because, firstly, in addition to fame, Nadia had some negative reviews, of course. For example, if you take an exhibition at the Tolstoy Museum, which took place when Nadia was 16 years old. At this exhibition, a discussion was to take place with the participation of famous Tolstoy scholars, many of whom smashed Nadya to smithereens, saying that a girl of 16 was unable to understand the great Tolstoy. There were, of course, positive reviews, but there were also such. And then Nikolai Konstantinovich writes in his diary: “I was very scared for Nadia, how she would react to this now.” And Nadia stood up and calmly said: “Yes, maybe I don’t understand the whole depth of Tolstoy, but I painted for myself and for my peers the way I understand it now.” For her, this glory did not play a role. Whether her drawings are recognized or not, she, of course, was worried, as any person would be worried, but there was no tragedy for her, she did not draw for this. She painted really for herself, not expecting any praise, no recognition.

I watched a film where Nadia drew Pushkin's profile with a twig in the snow, listened to her quiet, ringing voice. I looked at the artist's childhood photographs for a long time. Nadia. Chubby laughing girl with a bow on her head, sitting in the tall grass. Here is Nadia in black braids stroking a goat at Vatagin's dacha. And the grown-up artist is a tall, thin reed girl with a touching smile. Such a lively, so close, light bird Naidan, flying away, as once the Little Prince, who managed to convey in his drawings something elusive, fleeting and very important.

Until I figured out Nadine's talent... And I don't know if it's even possible?

There are many people whose talent is discovered in early childhood. However, not all of them become famous and receive worldwide fame. Many remain unknown geniuses who are forced to drag out their miserable existence with difficulty. But there are also individuals who, on the contrary, at the peak of their popularity, die early. It is to them that Nadia Rusheva belongs. This is a small 17-year-old artist with a tragic and at the same time happy fate, which we will talk about in our article.

Birth, adolescence and youth of a little artist

One can only speak positively about the eternally young 17-year-old girl who was destined for such a short, but very bright fate. She is a little sun, which during her lifetime caused only delight. Nadezhda was born on January 31, 1952, in the family of the talented master of fine art Nikolay Konstantinovich Rushev and the first Tuvan ballerina Natalia Doydalovna Azhikmaa-Rusheva. However, Nadyusha did not grow up as an ordinary child.

Unexplained craving for drawing

The girl's penchant for drawing appeared in early childhood. At the age of five, the baby’s father began to notice one interesting feature: as soon as he began to read fairy tales aloud, his daughter immediately jumped up, ran away somewhere and returned with a pencil and paper. Then she sat down next to me, listened attentively to her father's voice and diligently drew something on paper. So, little by little, Nadya Rusheva began to draw.

School and drawing

Parents loved Nadya very much, so before school they tried "not to bother the child's head" with the exact sciences and the humanities. They did not specifically teach her to write or read. When the baby was seven years old, she was sent to school. So Nadezhda for the first time began to master the sciences, learn to write, read and count. Despite her fatigue and workload as part of the school curriculum, the girl still found time and took half an hour a day after school to draw.

The artist's interest in Russian fairy tales, myths and legends of Ancient Greece, and biblical parables has not dried up over the years. At this age, Nadya Rusheva continued to combine her favorite pastime, drawing, with listening to evening fairy tales performed by her father.

The first record for the number of pictures

One day, Nadya, as usual, was sitting and listening to her dad, who read for her "The Tale of Tsar Saltan" by A.S. Pushkin and traditionally made sketches. When the curiosity of Nikolai Konstantinovich got the better of him, and he decided to see what the girl was drawing there, his surprise knew no bounds. As it turned out, during the reading of the fairy tale, Nadyusha created as many as 36 pictures corresponding to the theme of the work. These were wonderful illustrations, the simplicity of the lines of which amazed the imagination.

What are the features of the drawings of Nadia Rusheva

The main feature of Rusheva's painting was that during her young career, the girl never made sketches and never used a pencil eraser. The artist preferred to create her masterpieces the first time. And if at the same time something did not work out for her or she was not satisfied with the result, she simply squeezed it, threw the picture away and started over.

According to the youngest talent, she heard or read some story, took a sheet of paper and already mentally saw what image to draw on it.

Nadya Rusheva (biography): recognition in adults

First exhibition and first life experience

The efforts of the Soviet artist Rushev Nikolai Konstantinovich were not in vain. When Nadezhda was 12 years old, with his help, her very first solo exhibition was organized. How much joy and positive emotions she brought to a fifth grader who dreams of becoming a famous cartoonist!

And although many critics were wary and somewhat distrustful of the schoolgirl, who did not have a diploma from a specialized art school and a lot of life experience, this did not repel, but, on the contrary, became a certain incentive for the artist. Nadya Rusheva (her photo can be seen above) did not leave her hobby, but continued to develop and improve her abilities.

However, along with the unexpectedly sudden popularity in the life of the girl, there were practically no changes. She still continued to go to school and study, go out with her friends, read and draw a lot.

Creating a new series of illustrations

At the age of 13, Nadya Rusheva created a new series of pictures that are illustrations for the work "Eugene Onegin". To the surprise of all relatives, friends and acquaintances, the teenage girl managed to combine two incredible things: not only depict people corresponding to a certain historical era, but even convey their mood.

Drawings are a ray of hope

Nadezhda Rusheva's paintings are ordinary pencil or watercolor sketches, which are a set of contours and lines. As a rule, hatching and toning were almost completely absent in them.

According to the famous sculptor Vasily Vatagin, Nadya Rusheva painted paintings with simple lines. However, they were made in such a light technique that many experienced, adult painters could envy such skill.

If we talk about the characters of the artist, they are so carefully selected and drawn that, looking at them, you simply marvel. Her mythical characters are not evil at all. On the contrary, they are kind and are designed to evoke only positive emotions.

According to the girl's father himself, she was good at capturing the mood of the authors who wrote this or that work, and also transferring it to paper. Centaurs, mermaids, gods and goddesses, characters from the Bible and fairy tales seemed to come to life under the pencil of a talented artist. It is a pity that Nadya Rusheva passed away early. Death overtook her at such a young age. Read more about how this happened below.

Exhibitions and new achievements of the girl

Over the next five years, many publishing houses, as well as representative offices of the arts, became interested in the works of Nadezhda. During this period, 15 new exhibitions of the works of the young artist took place. They were successfully held in Poland, Romania, India, Czechoslovakia and other countries of the world. Among the paintings of Nadyusha were illustrations for ancient Greek myths and legends, for fairy tales and works of Soviet poets and prose writers.

Bulgakov's work in the creative life of Nadezhda

A special touch on the life path of Nadezhda was a series of illustrations made by her while reading such a landmark as The Master and Margarita. At that time, the girl was only 15 years old.

For those who do not have information, the main characters of this novel are vivid prototypes of the author himself and his beautiful wife. Without even realizing it, Nadya Rusheva intuitively felt this similarity and did everything possible to transfer her thoughts to paper.

Extraordinary passion for ballet

Few people know that, in addition to literary works, the artist was also interested in ballet. Little hope often visited her mother's rehearsals and admired her grace during the performance. Once Nadezhda even managed to draw an illustration for the ballet Anna Karenina, and long before the music for this work was written.

Bulgakov's choice

When the author of today's sensational novel saw Nadina's illustrations, he was amazed by them. So he immediately decided to use them as spectacular illustrations for the book. So the young artist became the first fifteen-year-old author who was officially allowed to illustrate the novel. Later, she also illustrated the novel "War and Peace" by L. Tolstoy.

Unexpected death

No one could even think that Nadya Rusheva would leave this world so quickly and unexpectedly. The cause of her death, according to official data, is a rupture of one of the vessels, followed by a brain hemorrhage.

“Everything happened suddenly,” the girl’s father shared his impressions. - Early in the morning, Nadezhda, as usual, was going to school, suddenly she felt ill and lost consciousness. The doctors fought for her life for more than five hours, but they still failed to save her.”

And although the girl's parents did not want to lose hope, the news of the death of their daughter completely unsettled them. Father and mother for a long time could not believe that their sun was no longer around. This is how Nadya Rusheva passed away. The cause of death is a congenital aneurysm.

A lot of time has passed since the death of a talented artist, but even today the memory of her is alive in the hearts of connoisseurs of her work and other artists.

Older Muscovites still remember the queues at the Pushkin Museum for an exhibition of graphics by a 17-year-old Moscow schoolgirl, whom the entire Union knew as a brilliant young artist Nadya Rusheva. She was the author of thousands of delightful drawings, including illustrations for "The Master and Margarita" - the best of all existing, according to the authoritative opinion of Bulgakov's widow. On January 31, 2017, she would have turned 65 years old. Unfortunately, she died when she was only 17. On the birthday of Nadya Rusheva, "Favorites" decided to restore the chronicle of the life and work of an incredibly talented girl.

1. Mother of Nadia Rusheva was the first Tuvan ballerina

Nadya Rusheva was born on January 31, 1952 in Ulaanbaatar. Her father was the Soviet artist Nikolai Konstantinovich Rusev, and her mother was the first Tuvan ballerina Natalya Doydalovna Azhikmaa- Rusheva.

Nadia's parents met in August 1945. Nikolai Rusev lived in Moscow, came to Tuva on a business trip. He was always interested in the East, but from this trip he brought not only impressions and books, but also an exotic oriental beauty. In old photographs, Natalya Doydalovna, a full-blooded Tuvan, looks like Chinese women from the films of Wong Kar-Wai. In the autumn of 1946 they got married.

2. Nadia started drawing at the age of five

No one taught her this, she just picked up a pencil and paper and never parted with them again in her life. One day she drew 36 illustrations for Pushkin's "The Tale of Tsar Saltan" while her father was reading this tale aloud. Nadia says:

“At first there were drawings for Pushkin's fairy tales. Dad was reading, and I was drawing at that time - I was drawing what I feel at the moment<...>Then, when she herself learned to read, she already did for The Bronze Horseman, Belkin's Tales, for Eugene Onegin ...»

Little Nadya Rusheva with her parents

3. Nadia never used an eraser

The peculiarity of Nadia Rusheva's style was that the girl never made sketches and did not use a pencil eraser. There are practically no hatchings and corrected lines in the drawings either. She always drew on the first try, as if she were tracing the contours visible only to her on a piece of paper. This is how she herself described the process of drawing:

“I see them in advance ... They appear on paper like watermarks, and I just have to circle them with something.”

There is not a single superfluous line in her drawings, but in each work the artist masterfully conveys emotions - often with just a few lines.

Natalya Goncharova, Pushkin's wife - perhaps the most famous drawing by Nadia Rusheva

4. The father decided not to send the girl to art school

Nadia almost never drew from life, she did not like and did not know how to do it. The father was afraid to destroy the girl's gift with drill and made the most important decision - not to teach her to draw. He believed that the main thing in Nadia's talent was her amazing imagination, which was impossible to teach.

Lyceum-freethinkers: Kuchelbecker, Pushchin, Pushkin, Delvig. From the Pushkiniana series

5. Nadia's first exhibition took place when she was only 12 years old.

In 1963, her drawings were published in Pionerskaya Pravda, and a year later, the first exhibitions were held - in the editorial office of the Yunost magazine and in the Art Club of Moscow State University.

In the next five years, another 15 solo exhibitions took place - in Moscow, Warsaw, Leningrad, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania and India.

Pushkin is reading. From the Pushkiniana series

6. “Bravo, Nadia, bravo!”, - wrote on one of her works the Italian storyteller Gianni Rodari

In assessing her work, ordinary viewers and art critics were unanimous - pure magic. How can you convey the finest movements of the soul, the expression of the eyes, plasticity with the help of paper and a pencil or even a felt-tip pen? .. There was only one explanation: the girl is a genius.

“The fact that this girl of genius created it becomes clear from the first drawing,” wrote Irakli Luarsabovich Andronikov, talking about the cycle “Pushkiniana”

“I know of no other similar example in the history of fine arts. Among poets and musicians, there were rare, but unusually early creative outbursts, but never among artists. All their youth is spent in the studio and mastering the skill," Alexei Sidorov, doctor of art history, admired Nadia.

"Apollo and Daphne", 1969.
The nymph Daphne took a vow of chastity. Fleeing from Apollo, inflamed with passion, she asked the gods for help. The gods turned her into a laurel tree as soon as the enamored Apollo touched her.

7. There are more than 300 drawings in the Pushkiniana series alone

Among the works of Nadia Rusheva are illustrations for the myths of Ancient Hellas, the works of Pushkin, Leo Tolstoy, Mikhail Bulgakov. In total, the girl illustrated the works of 50 authors. Nadia's most famous drawings are a series of illustrations for the fairy tale "The Little Prince" by Antoine de Saint-Exupery, for the novel in verse "Eugene Onegin" by Pushkin and for "The Master and Margarita" by Bulgakov.

The artist dedicated about 300 drawings to Pushkin, whom Nadya called "the dearest poet".

She was promised a career as an illustrator, but she herself wanted to become an animator, preparing to enter VGIK.

Pushkin and Anna Kern (from the Pushkiniana series)

8. Nadia's drawings were highly appreciated by the writer's widow Elena Sergeevna Bulgakova

Nadya read the novel The Master and Margarita, half-banned in the USSR, in one breath. The book completely captivated her. She put aside all other projects and for some time literally lived in the world created by Bulgakov. Together with their father, they walked around the places where the action of the novel unfolded, and the result of these walks was a stunning cycle of drawings, in which Nadya Rusheva appeared as a practically accomplished artist.

Incredibly, these drawings, created half a century ago, remain to this day, perhaps, the most famous illustrations for Bulgakov's novel - and the most successful, in many respects prophetic. Never seeing Elena Sergeevna Bulgakov, the writer's widow and prototype of Margarita, Nadya gave her Margarita a resemblance to this woman - amazing insight, the quality of a genius. And the Master turned out to be similar to Mikhail Afanasyevich himself.

It is not surprising that Elena Sergeevna was fascinated by the work of Nadia:

“How free! .. Ripe! .. Poetic innuendo: the more you look, the more addictive ... What an amplitude of feelings! .. A girl of 16 perfectly understood everything. And not only understood, but also convincingly, beautifully portrayed.

Master and Margarita

The first meeting of the Master and Margarita

Margarita snatches the manuscript from the fire

Poet Homeless

9. Literally on the eve of her death, Nadia went to Leningrad, where a documentary was filmed about her.

At the end of February 1969, the Lenfilm film studio invited the 17-year-old artist to take part in the filming of a biopic about herself. Unfortunately, it was left unfinished. Nadia returned home just a day before her death.

One of the most striking episodes of the ten-minute unfinished film is those few seconds when Nadia draws Pushkin's profile with a branch in the snow.

Hope Rusheva. self-portrait

10. She died unexpectedly

On March 5, 1969, Nadia was going to school as usual and suddenly lost consciousness. She was taken to the First City Hospital, where she died without regaining consciousness. It turned out that she lived with a congenital cerebral aneurysm. Then they couldn't treat it. Moreover, the doctors said that it was a miracle to live up to 17 years with such a diagnosis.

Nobody knew that Nadia had an aneurysm - she never complained about her health, she was a cheerful and happy child. Death came from a hemorrhage in the brain.

The merciless cruelty of fate snatched from life the newly blossoming talent of the brilliant Moscow girl Nadia Rusheva. Yes, brilliant - now there is nothing to be afraid of a premature assessment.

- from a posthumous article by Academician V.A. Vatagin in the magazine "Youth"

Nadia left behind a huge artistic legacy - about 12,000 drawings. It is impossible to calculate their exact number - a significant proportion of them were sold in letters, the artist presented hundreds of sheets to friends and acquaintances, a considerable number of works for various reasons did not return from the first exhibitions. Many of her drawings are kept in the Leo Tolstoy Museum in Moscow, in the Nadia Rusheva Branch Museum in the city of Kyzyl, in the Pushkin House of the Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg, the National Cultural Foundation and the State Museum of A.S. Pushkin in Moscow.

Journalist and writer Dmitry Shevarov, in his article about Nadia Rusheva, says that the work of the Soviet artist turned out to be extremely close to Japanese classical aesthetics.

“The Japanese still remember Nadya, publish her drawings on postcards,” writes Shevarov. - Coming to us, they are surprised that there is no Rushevo museum center in Russia, that Nadia's works are in storerooms, and our young people, for the most part, have not heard anything about Rusheva. “This is your Mozart in the visual arts!” - the Japanese say and shrug their shoulders in bewilderment: they say, how rich are these Russians with talents that they can even afford to forget about their geniuses.

But how? Where? Why instead of skipping ropes and classics - books, biographies and hours of painstaking work without rest and break. A job that no one forced her to do. And why did ancient Hellas, Pushkin's biography and Byron's "Bride of Abydos" interest a 12-year-old child more than games and chatter with friends? Alas, no one can answer these questions. The girl seemed to be in a hurry to fulfill a mission known to her alone and, having completed it, passed away.

They said about Nadia Rusheva - a brilliant girl. Her drawings are like a breath of fresh air, real, open, penetrating into the very depths of the human soul.

Childhood and youth

Naydan Nikolaevna Rusheva was born on January 31, 1952. The girl has Tuvan roots, hence the unusual name. Naidan from Tuvan - "forever alive".

The family of the Soviet artist Nikolai Konstantinovich Rushev has lived in Ulaanbaatar (Mongolia) since 1950. After the birth of the child, they moved to Moscow, where his father got a job as an artist on Central Television, and his mother Natalya Azhikmaa (once a ballerina) devoted time to raising her daughter. Nadia's biography has been associated with art since childhood. The first impressive drawings appeared when the girl was five years old.

Creation

In the first grade, Nadia no longer parted with a pencil. After studying, the artist devoted a lot of time to art. At the age of seven, the girl drew illustrations for the work "The Tale of Tsar Saltan." During the evening, 36 drawings appeared while the father read the story aloud.

Later, having mastered reading, the artist illustrated The Bronze Horseman, Belkin's Tales and Eugene Onegin. Over the years, in addition to a graphite pencil, Nadya learned to work with a pen, felt-tip pen, and pastel. In the spring of 1964, Yunost magazine organized a debut exhibition for the novice artist, then published some of her works.

It is known that at the request of Pushkinist A. I. Gessen, Nadya worked on illustrations for his book “The Life of a Poet”. Rusheva treated the task with interest and responsibility: she read the works of famous literary critics, looked into the poet's memorial apartment. With a goose quill, Nadia carefully drew pictures, but Hessen was not impressed by any.

As a result, the book was released without the artist's drawings, and the illustrations (about 300 of them) are kept in museums after Rusheva's death.

At the age of 12, the brilliant Nadia already had rich artistic experience behind her back. Creativity consisted of more than five thousand drawings of different styles and different themes. The exhibitions were not limited to regional scales: Rusheva's works have been to Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania and India. In 1965, the Yunost magazine published illustrations for Eduard Pashnev's story Newton's Apple.

It is known that Rusheva did not draw sketches, and there would never be an eraser in her creative tools. Pictures were born easily, images popped up in my head, and there could be no mistake: Nadya just created. The girl wrote illustrations for the myths of Ancient Greece (“The Labors of Hercules”), transferred the images of the heroes of the Odyssey and the Iliad to paper.

One of Nadia's favorite works was the ballet "Anna Karenina". The artist depicted graceful ballerinas, but she did not have time to see the beauty in the performance of the ballerina on stage.

The talent of the young artist is a natural gift. The father decided not to send the girl to an art school; Nadya did not study drawing anywhere. Rusheva illustrated "War and Peace", "Master and Margarita". Contemporaries saw in her a brilliant book graphic artist.

At school, Nadia played in the KVN team, designed a wall newspaper. I often went to theaters and museums with my parents.

I planned to draw illustrations for,. Relatives recall that the girl dreamed of becoming a cartoonist.

The illustrations for The Master and Margarita were enthusiastically received by Elena Sergeevna Bulgakova. The writer's widow said that Nadia was the first artist who managed to accurately reveal the image.

Personal life

A separate line in the life of Nadia Rusheva is 30 days in the Artek camp in 1967. A fifteen-year-old girl managed to leave drawings there, which are now stored in museums. Nadya drew wall newspapers and did not stop creating for the soul.

With the consent of Natalia Azhikmaa, the artist's correspondence with a friend from Artek, Alik (Oleg Safaraliev), has long been made public. It was the communication of two fifteen-year-old teenagers, just entering adulthood, reflections on the future, on humanity. Nadia occasionally talked about successes in creativity and school everyday life. Now the film director Safaraliyev has letters and many illustrations to them.

Death

Nadya Rusheva died suddenly for everyone when she was 17 years old. Shortly before her death, the young artist and her father visited Leningrad at the invitation of Lenfilm. The film studio filmed the tape "You, as the first love" about Rusheva's talent. Filming remained unfinished.

March 6, 1969 Nadia was going to leave the house to study. The girl's condition deteriorated sharply, she lost consciousness. Nearby was Nikolai Konstantinovich, who called an ambulance. Rusheva was urgently hospitalized, but could not be saved. The cause of death was a congenital aneurysm of a cerebral vessel.

The parents did not suspect about the illness of their daughter until the moment of death. The disease at that time was not curable. According to medical professionals, 17 years with such a problem is a long time. Nadia was buried at the Intercession Cemetery. The monument depicted "Centauren", painted by a young artist.

"Centaur" also became the basis for the prizes of the "Golden Centaur" and "Silver Centaur" festivals. Since 2003, a monument based on the drawing has been erected in St. Petersburg. It is located in front of the Cinema House.

The school where Nadia studied has become a museum dedicated to the artist's work. In honor of Nadia Rusheva, a pass was named in the Caucasus. In 1973, the playwright Anna Rodionova dedicated the play The Girl Nadya to the artist.

Despite her short life, Rusheva left about 12,000 drawings. Many works are kept by acquaintances and friends of Naidan. Today, you can touch the girl’s work in museums (“Leo Tolstoy” in Moscow, “Named after Nadia Rusheva” in Kyzyl, as well as in St. Petersburg and the city of Sarov).

Nikolai Konstantinovich Rushev collected the memory of his deceased daughter until the end of his life, organized exhibitions, and also wrote the work “Nadya’s Last Year”, using the artist’s notes.

Nadia's father died of cancer in 1975 and is buried next to Nadia. Materials from "Nadya's Last Year" were first published by the newspaper "Center of Asia" with the consent of her mother. Creativity and life of the mysterious forever young artist are studied by researchers and admirers of creativity.